Seeking Solitude
by Slipstream
Summary: Spoilers for ROTK. During Aragon’s crowning feast, Frodo feels alienated from the festivities around him.


Title: Seeking Solitude

Author: Slipstream

Rating: PG, for physical and mental suffering and much post-quest angst

Characters: Frodo, hobbits mentioned

Summary: Spoilers for ROTK. During Aragon's crowning feast, Frodo feels alienated from the festivities around him.

Notes: Woo, this fic is vocabulary heavy. I know that the style totally switches from the opening first bit to the rest of the story, and I apologize for that. The first, short and choppy, was an idea that flashed through my mind as something I could possibly condense for a drabble, but when I came back upon it in my files, the rest just sort of naturally flowed from what I thought was the end. Guess this goes to show that even writers have no control over their own creations. And this one was written because this scene in the book is just too happy. One minute Sam and Frodo are dying, the next, cheery little fellows cavorting around Ithilien. Uh-uhn. You can't shake off Mordor that quickly… 

~~~***~~~

It had been such a simple thing, really.

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. 

So easy. Child's play. A trick he had performed without end as a child, cocking each digit as it was counted, over and over again. 

One two three… 

Frodo remembered sitting on his father's knee in the warmth of a summer night, his small fingers spread out between his father's large ones as Drogo recited a sing-song story rhyme to name each of the digits. 

Four five six… 

This little hobbit went to town square. 

Seven eight nine…

With a squeal at ten his father fell to tickling him through the child-sized waistcoat, face breaking into a wide grin of suntanned splendor, so different from Frodo's own pale, wide-eyed face.

But what could he do now? How high could he count?

One two thee four five six seven eight nine…

Nine…

Nine, and what?

A nub. That was all.

One two three four five six seven eight nine nub.

That was the extent of his counting abilities.

~~~***~~~

About Frodo the feasting was proceeding merrily. Wine goblets were risen in hail to the new king and the deliverance of the land from the darkness and plates were passed with abandon hand to hand over and between the centerpieces, deftly dodging each guest to be picked at and devoured. The noise was high about these great tables, the merriment of men and elves and dwarves mixing and growing into a great crescendo. 

Indeed, in all the masses of food, only the hobbits seemed thin and sick, a startling contrast to the bright, merry creatures they had started out as. To unknown eyes, Merry and Pippin seemed the healthiest, with their broad shoulders and deeply set tan accented by the clothing of men, but Frodo felt a loss at the sight of the narrow-waisted garments and arms set hard and strait by wearisome labor. He had noticed that Merry now favored his left hand, tucking the right one often into a pocket or the folds of his cloak, sometimes reaching absent-mindedly to finger the dark scar that spread across his brow. Pippin's ever cheerful features were more pinched and colored by the last fading of bruises, the smile less easy to come by, and he still walked with a slight limp and was sore inclined to bow at the waist. Beside him, Sam often rubbed at his eyes and squinted, his cracked palms making thin papery noises against the now leathered flesh, slouching over to hide the sunken hole of a belly that had once boasted the girth of health.

The ache in Frodo yawned wider with the sudden, maddening dream-wish of seeing the three of them, curled lazily under the shade of the party tree, untucking shirt-tails and easing open waistcoats and jackets to let loose the fat of the soft curve of their middles, evidence of yet another meal well eaten on such a warm and drowsy afternoon. The picture made him choke on his own food, and Sam cast a worried glance at his direction.

Frodo's first attempts at dinner now lay scattered across the table top, though the majority of it had been cleaned away by kind-faced kitchen servants while the remainder of his company had glanced nervously away, pretending not to see. Not to see his clumsiness, his weakness, his deformity.

The goblet had been heavy, made of gold or brass or some other great metal that shone in the dim torch-light. Too heavy for the clasp of his small, maimed hand. He had stubbornly tried to grasp it, but the lack of a fifth digit proved fatal as the wine had gone spilling in a sudden flood of dark red.

Now he clutched at his cup like a child, with both hands, steadying it on the table while he took slow, careful sips. Occasionally Sam would nudge him and quietly urge him to taste various morsels of Aragon's crowning banquet. He silently obeyed, eating slowly and carefully, mindful to hide the twittering in his fingers and lips.

The night wore on, with Frodo able to move his food around his plate often enough to appear to have eaten his share. Still the feast showed no sign of ending. Weariness was a weight nearly equal to that of the Ring that clung to every bone in his body. He longed to be away from the clamor and unabashed noise of so many voices, so many clinking plates, so much merriment and joy. It was sacrilegious, after those weeks alone in the wilderness with Sam, weeks of silent birds and winds held in a hush should they rouse the attention of the Dark Lord, to make so much noise so openly. 

Frodo thought of the soft encompass of the bed in which he had awoken no more than a week ago. Thought of the silken texture wrapped around his body, tickling the hard calluses of his hands and feet and teasing his languid mind back to a state of slumber. That bed was warm and safe and soft, all of the things that Mordor was not, the epiphany of heaven. He longed for it now, longed to return to it, that place which simplified life to merely the time between waking and sleeping. 

He cast a quick glance at the host of races about him. Even at their politest, and at such a formal and regal a celebration as this, the men surrounding him were none the less warriors, crude and harsh and loud. Only the elves, seated higher up at his own table, were calm and collected, but their talk still strayed upon violence and death. Not a subject Frodo wished to deal with any more in his life, if he could help it. As of yet, it seemed his own mind would betray him enough with this matter, he did not need of others to remind him of what they had sacrificed to achieve their goal. 

Glancing to his left, Frodo watched Sam's eyes droop lower and lower, weariness and wine taking their toll. Only politeness kept Sam from nodding off on his host. He was futilely trying to prop himself up against the table and his own arms, but Frodo knew it was a battle lost. Sam looked so sad and sick, like himself, dressed in glowing finery that juxtaposed with the sallow state of his skin. He longed to see his friend as he was long ago, before the Ring, wearing his favorite homespun green and white shirt and worn breeches, laughing as he sorted out the onions Frodo had mistakenly placed with the tulip bulbs. 

"Now now, Mr. Frodo," he had chided, "They may look alike to the untrained eye, but now matter how much you water an onion, it'll never bloom petals, nohow."

Frodo was like that. The healers were attending the hobbits very closely, watering and watering with their herbs and foul tasting medicines. He could see Merry, Pippin, and Sam all beginning to bud and bloom under their careful ministrations, but he could feel himself rotting in their flowerbed. 

The Ring was gone, and Frodo feared he could never come back from its brink.

Sam had finally made formal acquaintances with the table top and was dozing lightly into the crook of his arm, his head no more than a mop of slightly singed brittle blonde hair. The tips of his fingers buzzed and Frodo ached to reach over and touch that mess of curls, to touch and believe that this was more than a happy dream before the final grasp of death, but the lack of a tenth digit was a cruel reminder that he mustn't. He was poison, after all. An onion mistaken for a tulip. He must keep his sickness to himself, so that others would never again suffer for his stupidity.

Taking advantage of his leave from Sam's ever watchful eye, Frodo gingerly lowered himself from his high chair at the table, wincing as his still healing feet came to contact with the rough slab floor. His joints ached at the undo pressure on his knees, and he went through many hissing breaths before he could straiten fully. 

Thus, limping and hissing, he made his way down the long banquet hall, occasionally grasping at the backs of the grand chairs for support. His journey went unnoticed by the larger folk as well as Merry and Pippin, the two having been called away to serve their respective masters. Frodo feared that his spirit and his strength would give before he ever neared the end of the hall, but to his surprise he looked up blearily and swayed to find the door. 

The sound of joyful mirth died suddenly in his ears at the mere hush of the night wind whispering through the partway open door, bringing a coolness that brushed a light hand over his flushed and fevered face. The world faded, in and out, and he was outside again, breathing deeply with hitching gasps air devoid of torch smoke and the smell of roasted beast flesh. How could it be, Frodo wondered, that a smell that had once brought images of food and comfort now only called forth the memory of dead orcs being burned in a land of ash and fire?

Bracing himself against the wall with his left hand (the right one was still wrapped in bandages and twinged whenever he put weight on it) Frodo began to hobble off into the night. Two steps, pause. Two steps, pause. Slowly he pushed his body into a shuffling waltz that wound deeper and deeper into the heart of the city. 

He must remember, a small voice that sounded very much like Sam asserted, the number of turns he had to make before he reached the main street. How many was it again? Four rights, two lefts? Ten turns total? Ten… nine… The numbers jumbled about in his head, pounding at each other until only the nine remained. Nine. Nine fingers, Nine wraiths, one… One…

Through his daze, Frodo gradually became aware of a burning pain that originated at the soles of his feet and traveled up through his legs. He paused and, rather stiffly, lifted up one furry foot for a closer inspection. Squinting through the blue shadows of night, his mind worriedly noted that the various cuts on the bottoms of his feet had reopened. Furthermore, the callus had split completely along the arch, spilling blood to cake over the entire sole. From the accompanying ache, he suspected the same had happened to the other foot.

He gingerly set it back down again. Now that he had started to pay attention to the pain, he noticed that his steps had left little crescent moons of blood down the hall, warm red smears that pooled in the cracks and shallow places of the floor. 

He trudged onward once more but paused shortly thereafter. Where was he? Blinking in delirium, Frodo turned his gaze to the stone walls that transformed the city into a labyrinth, searching for some familiar landmark he could use to find the correct passage. The slate, however, was silent, boring down upon him, hard and cold. A sudden gust of wind whipped through the passage, ripping through his clothes and causing him to double over against its sting. The torch that had lit that corner of the passage flickered once, twice, before finally sputtering into a dead mass of twigs and sparks. 

Frodo stared at the place his only source of light had been. Had his sin been so great that even nature denied him any form of comfort? He shivered and closed his eyes, but the blackness within was only greater. He opened them again, and called out in the harsh rasp of his former voice the fires of Mordor had left him. 

"Am I to be left as such, alone and naked in the dark? Is there to be no healing, no comfort for my pain?"

The night stared back, solid and unheeding. Accusing.

He sighed and the wind echoed it, stretching his breath into a cold hiss of steam. "I thought as much."

Frodo turned back towards the ever-lengthening walkways, not caring where the paved stone of man took him, and began to count the steps he took away from the waking world.

One two three four five six seven eight nine… Nine…

This little hobbit cried…

-Fin


End file.
